The Seattle city council just voted 9-0 on an expansive tax that would seek to tax the city’s businesses that make over 20 million dollars a year in gross revenues. An earlier proposal that passed last week would have taxed businesses around $500 per employee per year. That measure — which passed 5-4 — Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan threatened to veto if it reached her desk.

The Navy has estimated a worst-case cost overrun of as much as $1.1 billion for the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the service's most expensive warship. The carrier is being built in Newport News by Huntington Ingalls Industries under a cost-plus, incentive-fee contract in which the Navy pays for most of the overruns. Even so, the service's efforts to control expenses may put the company's $579.2 million profit at risk, according to the Navy.

BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN - News that President Barack Obama arrived in Hawaii this weekend to join his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha in time for a Christmas holiday has been covered by news media worldwide. The first family and their friends have been enjoying a reclusive 17-day holiday vacation in beach front homes in Kailua, Oahu. But another powerful politician is here for the holidays as well, albeit on another island and with less media attention. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who served as Speaker of the House and is now head of the House minority, is once again...

On Aug. 9, 2010, former senior U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska died when his red 1957 de Havilland float plane tore a 300 foot gash into the side of a mountain in a remote spot far from his constituents and even further from the limelight of Washington, D.C. Stevens was approaching his 87th birthday. In addition to Stevens, four others were killed in the horrific mountainside crash. Stevens' death mirrored his precipitous fall from grace in the U.S. Senate, where he had served the citizens of Alaska for 40 years, longer than any other Republican in history. He had...

If successful, Max Mosley's bid to change the UK law on privacy could result in 'a radically different press...with a lot of the colour taken away' and 'papers folding because they can't afford the legal costs' and 'would imperil investigative journalism', it has been warned – as D-day looms in the European Court of Human Rights. Just under three years ago, the then FIA President found himself at the centre of a sensationalist tabloid sex scandal following a front page exposé published by Sunday red-top the News of the World detailing his lurid liaisons with prostitutes in a so-called 'torture...

The expected litigation frenzy against mortgage lenders that used "robo-signing" tactics — mass signing and approval of foreclosure documents without verification — has launched, with class actions in Florida and Maine and a lawsuit by Ohio's attorney general filed this month, all against GMAC Mortgage. Other purported class actions involving robo-signing have been filed in federal courts in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and New Jersey in recent weeks. Lawyers expect many more to follow

It was designed with input by U.S. Special Operations Command warriors for special ops missions to be lighter, more maneuverable and longer lasting. Earlier this month, the MK-17 – dubbed the SCAR by its Belgian manufacturer FNH – went into "full rate production" making it the first new assault carbine to be purchased by the U.S. military since the M-16 and M-4 rifles went online four decades ago. The rifle is expected to be particularly valuable in situations like those faced by soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, where the weapon's additional range will provide a significant upgrade.

Lt. Comdr. John McCloy, recipient of two Medals of Honor, was born 30 January 1876 at Brewster, N.Y. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy 7 March 1903, was warranted boatswain 30 July 1903 and commissioned ensign 1 July 1917. He received his first Medal of Honor “for distinguished conduct in the presence of the enemy in battles of the 13th, 20th, 21st, and 22d of June 1900, while with the relief expedition of the Allied Forces in China.” His second Medal of Honor was awarded to him “for distinguished conduct in battle and extraordinary heroism; engagement of Vera Cruz, April...

Both Neo-Liberalism and traditional Islam present unmistakable hallmarks of Fundamentalist thought. (Neo-Liberalism defined here as the early 20th century attempt to hide socialism behind the term “liberalism.”) Arguably, the main fixation behind both ideologies is controlling others, seeing to it they obey all the rules. In other words, both have a predilection towards totalitarianism. This is clearly seen in regimes like Saudi Arabia, China, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Both socialists and Islamic fundamentalists assume a judgmental, condescending tone when preaching. Such doctrinaire attitudes result from accepting a false fundamentalist world view

Just before Climategate, we were reflecting on the apparent non-”robustness” of the Yamal chronology to inclusion of Khadyta data. Briffa’s response was that he could still “get” a HS by adding in Yadoyayakha and Porzayakha ring width data that hadn’t been used in Briffa (2000). As noted in other posts, Khadyta isn’t the only site with a divergence problem. Divergence, if anything, is the rule, rather than the exception. Briffa didn’t discuss why there were such differences between the sites – something that I’ll consider briefly today.

Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said. It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change. The study said about 8 million tonnes of methane a year, equivalent to the annual total previously estimated from all of the world's oceans, were seeping...

Like another famous athlete, British tennis star Andy Murray has been having relationship problems of late. Unlike Tiger Woods, Murray hasn't been spending too much time with other women, however. He's been spending too much time on his Playstation.

It's such an honor to receive you here in the northern capital of the Middle Kingdom as you pay tribute to the hub of the already developing 21st-century multipolar world. Excuse us if we may diverge for a while from the outlines of established diplomatic finesse, but as we fully admire your integrity, honesty and magnificent intellectual accomplishments, allow us to address you with a measured degree of frankness.

The ongoing campaign against triads, or Chinese-style mafias, in the western China metropolis of Chongqing is the largest such operation since 1949. Yet what renders this so-called "anti-triad tornado" (fanhei fengbao) so disturbing is not simply that close to 3,000 big-time criminals have been nabbed by authorities, but that the Chongqing disaster has laid bare the full extent of the collusion between organized crime on the one hand, and senior officers in the police and judiciary on the other.

BRISTOL, Conn. (AP)—An ESPN spokesman says the production assistant whose affair with Steve Phillips led to the baseball analyst’s firing is no longer with the sports network. Spokesman Mike Soltys said Monday that Brooke Hundley doesn’t work at ESPN anymore. He declined to say whether she quit or was fired. Hundley did not immediately return a phone message Monday. Connecticut-based ESPN fired Phillips on Sunday night, less than a week after he admitted to an affair with the 22-year-old assistant. A representative for Phillips has also said he was entering a treatment facility. ESPN says Phillips’ ability to be an...

Has FR been compromised? For the past two days as soon as I click on FR my computer becomes smoked with Trojan Horses and a pop-up about working at home and one for Google. I have the purchased version of AVG running and Windows Defender operating as well. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Our mission here at the International Center for Bathroom Etiquette is to improve the bathroom going experience for everyone by educating people about proper bathroom etiquette. Every day across the world millions of people are unsatisfied with the way their trip to the bathroom turned out, and we believe that it doesn’t have to be that way.

A manufacturing problem with the U.S. Navy's new Virginia class SSNs (nuclear attack subs) has delayed the commissioning of a new boat, the USS New Mexico. The ceremony will be delayed from November 21st, to sometime in January or February. The problem has to do with bolts that were not manufactured to specifications. These bolts hold together the track system that is used to move torpedoes and other weapons around the "weapons room". The poorly manufactured bolts will hold the tracks together under peacetime conditions. But in the stress of combat (like depth charges or violent maneuvers) they are likely...

For the third time in the last decade, the U.S. Air Force is looking at using commercial aircraft as bombers. This time around, it's mainly a matter of cost, with the next generation heavy bomber likely to cost over a billion dollars each, and only carry 30 tons of bombs or missiles. The idea of militarizing 747s first started gaining traction three decades ago, as cruise missiles showed up and many air force analysts did the math and realized that it would be a lot cheaper to launch these missiles from a militarized Boeing 747. The freighter version of the...